Jenny Leavitt. GodPrints. Redemption P, 2022.

I confess that I was a bit skeptical about GodPrints as I began reading it. Back in the early seventies critics coined the term “disease of the week.” Due to the popularity of the novel and film Love Story and television specials like Brian’s Song, stories about people suffering terrible diseases became overdone. As I began this book, I was beginning to feel like someone was trying to exploit my tear ducts. Even the title seemed a bit strained.

Gradually, as I realized what the author was doing, I changed. GodPrints is pretty intense in places, but it has a truly redemptive purpose. It is worth sharing.

Mrs. Leavitt tells about her own battle with cancer. She was a young mother in her early twenties with two preschool sons when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which is often fatal. The treatments were brutal. I was reminded of Gunther’s Death Be Not Proud, the explorer’s memoir about the death of his teenaged son from a brain tumor. She and her husband were told that she probably would not live. Obviously, she did, or she would not be writing this book.

What made this story different from the other ones I have mentioned was the both Mr. and Mrs. Leavitt, though they came from rough backgrounds, had committed their lives to Christ when they were teenagers. What was happening? What would happen to her little boys? She not only committed herself to Jesus, but she and her husband committed themselves to fight the disease.

Since the couple were young and Mr. Leavitt was just starting out in a career, there were financial as well as medical concerns. She credits the support of their church at the time as well. People were looking out for them and praying for them. Although she has suffered from side effects from the cancer treatments and the cancer itself, she has been in remission for many years.

But it is fair to say that the cancer was not the biggest trial. We read about her family and her two sons growing. The younger one, Jacob, had begun taking the Bible seriously when he was about fifteen or sixteen. She could see some real and positive changes. She was thanking the Lord for the way He was working in his life.

Then, one night, the boys were on their way home in their car from a church event, and their car was struck by a drunk driver. Jacob died. Caleb survived but took months to recover from his injuries. In many ways this was a harder trial than the cancer. We can attribute Jacob’s death to simple natural facts, but it still hurt.

As is true in many cases with the death of a child, the accident put a strain on the couple’s relationship. It is not uncommon to have a divorce follow the death of a child. Mrs. Leavitt honestly chronicles their struggles. This story became a lot more than just a disease of the week story.

If there is a theme to GodPrints, it perhaps can be summed up by James 1:2-4:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (For a great musical adaptation of these verses go to https://safeshare.tv/x/ss646654689bbe0.)

Hard times can have some people turn bitterly away from God, but to find real strength and consolation, they can draw people closer to God. Where else can they turn for such support?

While GodPrints focuses on those two major trials, there are others as well. She describes a few years after Jacob’s passing in a chapter titled “Six Months from Hell.” She is a little vague on this, but basically through much of her life, she had been conscious of the Lord’s presence. Now, there was no sense of that. She realized afterwards that God will do that to get us to simply have faith regardless of how we feel. Trust in Him and His Word. That is what faith is, regardless of what we might be experiencing.

There were other events in the lives of the Leavitts, moves, job changes, even starting a church. But overall, their story has potential for ministering to its readers. Because the Leavitts have been through so much, we can see that what they have learned is hardly superficial. They have been there.

As kind of a postscript, I was reminded of an experience in my own life. When I was twenty-two, two of my best friends from high school were killed in an automobile accident. The last few times I saw my friend Bruce before he died, he was talking about God in a different way. He asked not “Do you believe in God?” but “Do you know God?” He had changed. Jesus had become real to him.

Looking back, his dying got me thinking about what happens when we die. Bruce had a faith that I did not have, but I had a sense that Bruce was all right. It would take another three years before I had my own experience with Jesus, but that accident was a “GodPrint” in my life. GodPrints is not mystical. It is real, it is raw, but through it all there is a confidence that God knows what is going on and that He has something better for His people.

Another book we recently reviewed with a similar bent is Be Held by Him. Although both books deal with enduring and handling trials, including severe diseases, they are different. I would recommend Be Held by Him especially for people whose problem is mysterious, rare, undiagnosed, or thought imaginary. I would recommend GodPrints especially for married couples and for parents who have lost a child. Both are well worth sharing with people who are going through trials and maybe wondering where God is in all that is happening.